Concorde v Putney CC

Match Report

BARTON BLITZ SETS UP COMFORTABLE 8 WICKET WIN

Last Sunday saw us entertain Putney C.C. , a very nice bunch of lads but who routed us last year bowling us out for a miserable 57. The game therefore got off to a good start when visiting skipper Ben Brook told us that the off spinner who took 8 wkts for them last season was not playing😀.

The visitors won the toss and elected to bat. We went into the match without a recognised spinner with neither Edgar or Jerry available and my pre-match strategy was instantly de-railed when Phil H. , who I had intended to share the new ball, announced he wasn’t fit to bowl!! I therefore paired the pace of Tom Barton from the mansion end with the nagging length and consistency of John Wilson from the pavilion end.

Putney began in solid fashion with both openers showing good technique but at 24 we made the breakthrough when Tom produced a ‘beauty’ which hit the very top of off stump. Tom’s tail was now up and 8 runs later produced a fast ‘yorker’ which bowled the experienced number 3, and then John got in on the act by deceiving the other opener with a full length delivery which bowled him ‘through the gate’ and it was suddenly 34-3. Runs were becoming very hard to come by for Putney with John keeping it very tight and Tom only conceding the odd boundary when the ball found the edge and flew down to third man. We then struck two more decisive blows when Luca Coleman took two excellent catches in rapid succession, firstly taking a smart one high to his right at backward point off a slashed drive to give Tom his third ‘scalp’ and in the next over when the veteran no.5 miscued an on drive, he swooped like a ‘panther’ from mid wicket to snatch it out of the air as it looped towards the writer at mid-on. This reduced Putney to 47-5, so with this scoreboard and both bowlers really ‘in the groove’ I decided to keep going with the same attack. The batsmen tried to dig in but at 69 the no.6 ‘shouldered arms’ to a ball that cut back sharply and bowled him giving Tom his fourth wicket and at 78 just after the drinks break, Tom took ‘two in two’ , the first brilliantly caught at second slip by debutant Bruce Gomme, the second cleaned bowled with the batsman simply done for pace! It was a great period of play to be involved in, witnessing Tom’s pace & hostility, complemented by John’s control and accuracy both supported by excellent fielding.

With 8 wickets down I finally replaced the opening bowlers with Matt S. and myself, and inevitably the tempo then dropped a bit. Against very accurate but somewhat less penetrative bowling, the Putney skipper supported by the tail, survived for another 30-40 mins and managed to push the score up to a more respectable 120 before Matt took a smart return catch, and finally Phil , who decided he could bowl a couple of overs, bowled the no.11 with a good ball that ‘jagged’ back. We went off to an early tea, rightly led off by Tom Barton.

Over tea, I cautioned our batsmen about complacency given what had happened last year, but we got off to the worst possible start when Jody was bowled by the second ball of the second over with just 4 byes on the board. Nick Wright joined Justin and they gradually built a steady partnership against very accurate bowling with very few loose balls. Runs initially came slowly and both batsman survived close lbw shouts, one in particular against Justin which seriously ‘disappointed’ the visiting skipper when our most ‘experienced’ umpire deemed it had hit him ‘just outside the line’. Nick combined sound defence with his trademark power against any loose balls and struck 7 authoritative boundaries in an innings of 32 before he hit the ball ‘down the throat of long off’ with the score at 64. Phil joined Justin and in his own special way decided the ‘Ben Stokes’ approach was needed rather than the ‘Alistair Cook’ approach to getting the last 50 odd runs. Despite being dropped several times, Phil struck 5 fours & a six in an entertaining 36 which propelled us to an early victory with the batting talent of Nick F., Matt, John & Tom not required! Justin finished with a solid 39 n.o. including 5 fours and was the perfect foil at one end for the aggression of Nick & Phil at the other. We witnessed the occasional comedy of seeing both Justin & Nick W. playing their curious game of ‘run avoidance’ (Edgar is the other member of this small club) where 2’s and 3’s become singles, and singles are avoided in favour of keeping the strike but I suppose that’s what good batsman can afford to do! Most of the rest of us are grateful to scramble every run possible! Overall it was a good team performance.